


Obligations of the Mad God

by Nebulad



Series: Knight, Knave, and Squire [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Daedra Worship, F/M, Madness, Multi, Post-Oblivion Crisis, Post-shivering Isles, Romance, skyrim era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: Fairne has spent years wandering Tamriel in repentance for failing Martin Septim and watching his empire crumble to dust. Pushing aside the madness inherent in her mantling of the Mad God, she finds herself in Skyrim as the dragon crisis rises from the ashes of Helgen. Despite her many failings, she's still a Blade; and so she sets out in search of the Last Dragonborn.Tsabhira is nothing like Martin Septim.
Relationships: Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Rumarin, Hero of Kvatch | Champion of Cyrodiil/Martin Septim
Series: Knight, Knave, and Squire [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/755688
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

Much had happened since Martin died; so much, in fact, that it sometimes… didn’t feel real. Fairne had mantled Sheogorath, or… or had she? Were there many who thought they’d mantled the mad god? Was she raving now, in the streets of Imperial City? Was it all… part of the delusion?

“No, my lord,” Haskill droned beside her. “The unfortunate events of newly minted Fourth Era  _ did  _ occur.” He faded out again, as if she’d summoned and banished him in the same breath. Maybe she had. Ever since— since what’d happened, it was hard to trust her own mind. Even having been through the trials of defeating Umaril the Unfeathered hadn’t seemed to cure her of…

Well, godhood she supposed.

Martin would be so disappointed.

But the point was, she supposed, that she tried to atone. She lived her life in penance, for how she’d failed Martin, failed the Septim bloodline, failed the Blades in the Great War, failed the Divines in her indulgent Daedra…— calling it worship was wrong, but she was certain Akatosh would not have directed her to become a bloody Daedra herself. No matter what the sins, in lists that she could rattle off eternally without stopping for breath (indulgent, another waste of time, always wasting time), she was attempting to make right by living her possibly endless life in repentance.

In its own fashion, contrition was just as selfish as pretending as if she’d never been touched by the Oblivion Crisis. She did her best to avoid advertising her own misery, as she wanted no one’s input on the subject unless the Divines saw fit to give Martin back in some way. She avoided towns and cities until she could absolutely not avoid it: silence, solitude, and contemplation weren’t good for her… paranoia. When she had to be around other people, she kept to herself. The Thalmor had made that easy, for a lone Altmer staring at nothing to be left alone. It helped that her face still carried the burden of the Badlands, though her eyes were… wild with divinity.

Or… what was the opposite of Divinity?

“Damnation,” Haskill informed her helpfully, his voice echoing off the trees. Akatosh, hadn’t she only just been in Falkreath? “You were, but you wandered away.”

“Gods,” she mumbled, waving him off. A puff of smoke and… had he been there at all?

It didn’t matter, she supposed.

Back to Falkreath. Best to be abed at this late hour, or early hour, depending on what hour it actually was. Akatosh was the god of time and he had to be upset with her for how she’d failed her task and His priest and the world. There was a proper fool on the throne now, not a Septim; Mede. Not mead, Mede, an old man who hadn’t a quarter of the strength of Martin. He would’ve never folded beneath the Thalmor— he would’ve never allowed the Nord before her to call her a goldenrod knife-ear and…

Oh. Back in Falkreath, at the inn. Time meant so little when the dragon god abandoned you.

She watched the Nord grow unsettled at her gaze. “Breakable,” Haskill told her helpfully.

“No,” she said out loud, Haskill already long gone. The Nord scrambled away.

“Sorry about him,” the innkeeper said, shaking her head. “He’s a bit of a lout but I ain’t got enough customers to chase him away.”

Time reasserted itself enough for her to speak plainly. “It’s fine. I’ve already forgotten.”

“That’s good of you; was worried that with all the conflict going on I’d have another problem on my hands.” She cleaned a glass while she spoke, and the simple swishing on the rag seemed to take  _ hours.  _ Fairne’s head hurt.

She looked up and the innkeeper flinched, averting her eyes. Divinity, damnation, madness, repentance. “I’m new to Skyrim,” she said, her voice low and slow and smoke-choked. “I haven’t heard much about the province.”

“Careful who you call it a province to. Stormcloaks think we ought to be our own country, like Hammerfell, except they want to be the ones to run it. Their leader, one of the Jarls, up and declared himself the new High King. They’re fighting the Imperial Army, all while dragons are bringing our houses down around our ears.” She shook her head again, the same way as she washed the cup— back and forth, forever— but Fairne’s ears perked.

“Dragons?”

“Aye, and a Dragonborn to boot.” Her heart skipped a beat. “No one knows who or where they are, though; took off to High Hrothgar and even the Jarl who sent them there— that’s the one in Whiterun— lost track. They’ve got mages scrying day and night, but they reckon the elf was a mage and blocks it all somehow.”

An elf.

Not Martin.

“Were two elves, too, and no one was quite sure which one was actually the Dragonborn. They were together the whole time and you know how taken to excitement the guardsmen are.” She shook her head. “If you see a Bosmer and an Altmer like yourself on the road, stop ‘em to be safe. We could really use whichever one of them can kill dragons.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like it! What can I say I like it. I've liked it this whole time and it isn't finished. Maybe I'll finish it, although I think the audience for OC third/fourth era fic is extremely minimal, I still liked this. We didn't have any "hero of kvatch as the mad god" rights in skyrim (like he mentioned martin once but classic sheogorath butchered through skyrim's character creator is NOT my incredibly broken altmer mess and while I wouldn't expect that of bethesda................I want hero of kvatch mad god).
> 
> I spend most of my time writing [playable interactive fiction games](https://heartforge.itch.io/) (link goes to my itchio page where you can play them if you're hankering for some romantic genre fiction). Check them out! It can't hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

“And why are you asking?” Balgruuf’s housecarl was a thin-lipped Dunmer whose eyes seemed permanently narrowed at the world. Fairne knew what she was thinking: Thalmor. Thalmor plant, Thalmor spy, worse than a Stormcloak and boding more ill than the Imperial Army, all after the Dragonborn who had so selflessly saved an entire city.

Or not so selflessly, seeing as they fled.

“I want to know.” It was an obvious answer and Irileth wasn’t pleased by it. “I have certain responsibilities to fulfill,” she tried, which only sounded more shady than before. What had Martin saw in her so clearly that she’d never had to prove herself like this to him?

She almost laughed; of course she forgot Kvatch and the gate and the stubborn priest who wouldn’t leave until it was gone. Details slipped and slid around in her head— was it age that made them so difficult to draw to the forefront of her mind, or self-defense? If she didn’t remember the breath being stolen from her by a solemn Imperial whose faith wavered so, she wouldn’t remember the breath being punched from her lungs by his death. By the dragon.

Of course, it could always be the madness.

“Breakable,” Haskill suggested from beside her.

“No,” she said aloud, and Irileth scowled.

“I think you should leave.” Her tone brooked no argument, nor did her posture or the sword she had her hand on so menacingly. Balgruuf on his throne did not seem inclined to intervene.

“If you say so,” she replied at the same time as Haskill.

. . . . .

She did as she did best, or used to do best before the failure sapped her of strength and will— failure on top of failure, giving up when Martin had asked her to go on for him— and hit the roads for rumours. Everyone talked about something, and surely an Altmer and a Bosmer would be noticed in the north where it was almost all Nords. None of them cared for her or her kind so if the Dragonborn was the Altmer it would explain why no one had bothered keeping tabs on them in the first place.

Same went for the Bosmer though. The way things were, any elf was reason enough for Nords to pretend not to know them, or to try and invent something new. She’d asked one of the guards before she left Whiterun and he’d sworn up and down it was an Imperial acting alone and—

—and her heart had jumped into her mouth and—

—and she’d asked what the Imperial looked like and—

—but the guard beside them scoffed and said the woman she was asking hadn’t even been at the tower, and knew nothing more than rumours. It wasn’t an Imperial, but a Breton.

Not a Breton, but a Nord.

Has to be a Nord, what else would the Dragonborn be?

Balgruuf knew for sure but wouldn’t speak to her. Irileth knew for sure but had thrown her out.

“Simply say the word, my lord, and you will know everything you need to,” Haskill said beside her.

“Breakable,” she quipped flatly.

“Indeed.”

“No.” The horsemaster’s head jerked up but she ignored him, continuing along the road. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Borderline incoherent is my middle name.


	3. Chapter 3

She dreamt of Martin still, even two hundred years later. They were mixed in with dreams of Mazoga and Modryn (something about the M’s, apparently), but Martin’s were more vivid. Mazoga and Modryn’s still drifted in and out of her life, but she didn’t begrudge them their own paths. Modryn lived out his golden years in Chorrol still, pretending he was too surly to advise the Guild any longer (only lingering in the training yard and loudly criticising form). Mazoga was still at the White Stallion Lodge, and though Fairne was no expert on time she was certain her old friend had a wife by now. She’d been courting last they met.

The pain of lingering on a life long lost made it difficult for Fairne to  _ want  _ to lean on her friends. They begged it of her, but how could she be such a burden on Modryn, who’d done more than his fair share long before the Emperor had died? How could she disrupt Mazoga’s life to try and fix her own?

Martin had gouged her open and the wound refused to heal, and she would bear that burden alone.

She dreamt of him on the edges of Cloud Ruler Temple, as far as he could get from the building and breathing fresh air. He wanted to be in Bruma. He wanted to be in Kvatch. He wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t hiding, wasn’t being protected while his people battled daedra and fought for their lives against madness and cults and pain. She was his eyes and his ears and his hands. She closed the gates and whispered hope to those that needed it.

_ You’re the hero,  _ he’d told her, the world in his eyes. She only was because he’d asked her to.

She saw him in flickering candlelight, never idle but sometimes… pensive.  _ You should be asleep,  _ she breathed, brushing his hair back with her palm.

_ How can I sleep? _

_ How can you know you can’t if you’ve never tried? _ His bed was cold and emptier than her sleep roll, even when she wasn’t there to use it. He laughed, quiet and warm and  _ home.  _ The Temple was home so long as he was in it.

He’d drawn her up beside him, head and shoulders shorter than her but indifferent to the difference.  _ What does the future hold, Fairne?  _ he’d asked, as if she’d know.

_ An Emperor.  _ It was the dutiful answer of the knight, regardless of what he wanted to hear.

_ And his heirs.  _ A grim turn of the mouth made him look his age, but it hardly mattered to Fairne. Who knew how old she was? Who knew whether or not Akatosh had created her within her cell, to serve Martin as loyally as anyone could ever hope to?  _ I’ll need them. Blood matters in an empire that would crown a priest for the blood of the father he never once met. _

_ And what does that matter to you? _ She put her hand on his arm and he took it, squeezing tightly.

_ I’m… not inclined,  _ he admitted.

_ To marriage or children? _

_ Either. Gods save the poor woman they hand me,  _ he said, shaking his head. Fairne couldn’t envision anyone ever being unhappy with Martin. What he may have lacked in inclination he made up for in compassion, and kindness, and… gods, to hear her talk, she really hadn’t blinked into existence until Uriel had needed her to find his son.

She squeezed him back.  _ I think after putting you through all this, Akatosh wouldn’t be so cruel as to test you further.  _ Or so she thought. What did she know? She wasn’t particularly inclined herself, but she needed no heirs. She would swear herself to Martin’s service in an official capacity and tend to him and his wife and children and probably his grandchildren farther down the line. Assuming she wasn’t already old, she had a good bit of life left in her.

He seemed to be thinking for a moment and she let him— she  _ had  _ let him. Memory and reality blurred sharply.  _ Perhaps I’m overthinking this,  _ he allowed.

_ You? Never.  _

He smiled— he  _ glowed—  _ and her heart filled.  _ You should be the one beside me. For all your trouble I think you deserve to retire as an Empress. _

That was too much, for a knight. For a young elf, as she suspected she may have been— or as she felt— it was too much for him to look at her so openly and assign her such value offhandedly.  _ You’re being kind,  _ she scolded, her face flushed golden.

_ It would be too much for me to ask of you, but… if you wanted, speak up. You would save some poor princess from having to deal with me and—  _ he paused, almost as if he felt as suddenly windless as she did—  _ I would like it, I think, more than I would with a stranger. _

She felt like crying, like reaching out for him, like shaking him to try and make him understand that she knew no tenderness beyond him. She’d never felt important like this, and what they were doing together— the evil they would banish from the land, with Fairne as his eyes and ears and hands, with his whisper of hope breathed through her lips— was the most important thing she’d ever done.  _ You know I’m yours,  _ she said instead of any of that.

_ I know you’ll do as I ask,  _ he said firmly. _ I want to know what you want. _

She pressed their foreheads together— a hug was too awkward to form between them without effort, and she wanted this moment to be effortless. She wanted him to know that she felt this impulse in her bones, and that it wasn’t taken lightly.  _ I’m  _ yours,  _ my friend. I told you this. _

Martin had laughed quietly, kissing her forehead apparently to prove that she wasn’t the only one taken by whim. And then… she woke up, the memory already fading against her eyelids. Martin’s face blurred with two hundred years of distance, and his promise long since unfulfilled. It wasn’t his fault. He’d asked her to rebuild the empire he’d never see, kissing her forehead like he’d done when he’d asked her to be his equal companion.

She simply hadn’t.

Tears slicked her face as she stared up at the ceiling of the inn.

“Breakable,” Haskill tsked. She didn’t say anything, because to her shame, she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually haven't posted anything in a really long time and it seems more and more obvious as I'm posting these that they've changed something so sorry in advance if I'm fucking it all up.
> 
> And I have another, I think actually finished, fic rotting away in drafts where Fairne is fresh back from the isles and having a godhood meltdown on Modryn's house while Mazoga is like are we gunna keep being precious about this? An orc and a Dunmer are gunna sit here and pretend like something daedric isn't happening because like...something daedric is clearly going on.


	4. Chapter 4

Her search led her to Dawnstar, where the black bags under her eyes did not mark her as much as it did in the other holds. A great evil had its grip on the night in the sleepy town, and to her shame she avoided the eye of the Priest of Mara.  _ I can’t. Not again, not again, not again.  _ She wasn’t strong enough, Akatosh forgive her.

Martin, forgive her.

She’d lost her rags along the way and outfitted herself in something more appropriate for a mage and a warrior on par with herself; or, how she hoped she still was. At least this made it so people stopped looking at her like some mad beggar, and she gleaned that the residents  _ had  _ seen a Bosmer and an Altmer travelling together. The alchemist knew the most— the Bosmer knew her way around a mortar and pestle and spent most of her time there, which depressed Fairne terribly. Once upon a time, she’d had such a skill as well; she’d lost so much, given up so much, let so many things fall to the wayside until they were dots in the distance.

“Such a nice couple,” the old woman crooned, the ring on her finger a testament to the pair’s kindness. “They don’t talk much, but to each other. I tried not to bother them while they worked— well, while the Bosmer worked. The taller fellow didn’t do much but watch her.”

“Do you know where they went?” Fairne asked, stepping forward through time so quickly she nearly hit the counter in her haste.

The alchemist’s face folded in on itself, brows touching. “I think they spoke to Silus, a few doors down. Perhaps you ought to steer clear of that one, though— you seem like a very nice person, and I’d hate for you to get mixed up in his foolishness.”

“Oh?” Dread suddenly coiled in her stomach, like she’d shrunk and not told any of her organs.

“Oh, yes. His ancestors made some… questionable decisions, in the past, and he’s got it in his head to be proud of it. I don’t care how long ago it was, it’s just in bad taste to advertise such a dreadful thing.” She shook her head again, frown still curling her lip.

“What sort of decisions?” she asked.

The old woman looked her up and down and Fairne wondered what she saw. Dark blonde hair haphazardly pulled and braided back, but laying wild like a child who had forgotten to tend to it? Feral eyes flashing with visions of the Isles? Could anyone see the sky behind her eyes, Haskill lingering in her tear ducts, or was that in her own mind? “Now, since I don’t think I can dissuade you from checking yourself, I’ll let it be a surprise. Some things are too awful to be spoken in polite company.” Evidently she saw nothing but a solemn Altmer with an amulet around her neck. Perhaps someone mistook her for a pilgrim or a priest.

She nodded deeply and bid the woman goodbye, stepping back out into the biting cold air of Dawnstar. Ice Wraiths were the wind brought to life, and she’d killed a few on her way in. They left no warm pockets to savour, and it broke no veil into the warmth that the cold choked out. Oh well. She must’ve only thought that killing them would be like relighting a fire, and so she banished the thought and continued along the doorways until…

Until she knew which house Akatosh had led her to this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See it ended somewhere good, didn't it? Somewhere spicy? But this is all I have for now. I ended on a) my favourite perspective of rumarin and tsabhi's relationship, that of a totally uninvolved outsider who just thinks they're strange and reclusive, and b) Fairne, hero of kvatch and notably significantly mentally and physically fucked up from fighting the mythic dawn finds ding dong and his mythic dawn museum.


End file.
